


Empire (State of Mind)

by asuralucier



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Consent, Erik Does Sexy Things with Metal, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mindfuck, Mirror Sex, Uncanny Valley, What Ifs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 23:12:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17109956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asuralucier/pseuds/asuralucier
Summary: “You’ve shot me in the spine,” Charles remarks. “I’m paralyzed from the waist down. I think we’re past ‘forward.’ Or any other form of politeness, really.”





	Empire (State of Mind)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fullmetalcarer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fullmetalcarer/gifts).



> Thanks to @oree_estelle for the beta!

Two men sit in a corner table in a restaurant. It’s a rather nice, swanky place, fancy enough to have a winelist without printed prices. They’ve just been served starters and before the waiter leaves them to it, he tops up their glasses from a carafe of very nice Reisling, which is not the most obvious choice to go with their meal, but what's life without a little adventure? 

The waiter says, “Can I get you anything else, gentlemen?” 

“That’ll be all for now,” Charles smiles. “Thank you.” 

There’s something distinctly _not quite right_ about this restaurant and more broadly, about this whole scenario, but Erik can’t put his finger on why. It’s not as if the caliber of the restaurant is any surprise; Charles can usually afford a certain sort of privilege and isn’t ashamed about being able to afford the things that he wants. After all, he affords these experiences precisely because he enjoys them. Otherwise, it’d be gauche. 

“What am I eating?” Erik finds that he doesn’t remember, but in another set of circumstances, he might have been more alarmed. For now, he thinks he has learned to endure certain bouts of forgetfulness in present company. 

“You ordered the scallops _en croute_ , darling,” Charles smiles again. It’s not the same smile he gives the waiter. “It’s a bestseller. It’s good. Try it.” 

It is good. Erik doesn’t much take to seafood, but he enjoys his scallops, elevated by the sharpness of the dill oil and the richness of the butter. It doesn’t seem like the sort of thing he’d usually enjoy, but what is important is that he’s enjoyed it. 

“Have we been here before, together?” 

“No,” Charles says. “I didn’t think you’d take to seafood. It’s a lot of seafood. They’re by the sea, it’s a hazard, as you can imagine.” 

“But you’ve been here before.” 

“I have.” 

Erik looks down at his scallops, and then at Charles, “...Who with?” 

“Is that curiosity or jealousy?” 

“Can’t it be both?” 

“Ever hear of the man who straddled two boats, too stubborn to choose one or the other?” Charles’s eyes widen, very blue, very sharp. There’s a playing edge to his smirk as he drinks more Reisling. “He fell into the ocean and drowned with his pants split open. Whoever he is, I can’t help but feel a bit sorry for him.” 

“I have made my choice,” Erik reminds him. “Just because you’re unhappy with it, doesn’t make it less of a choice, Charles.” 

Charles doesn’t say anything.

“Anyway. This...you know, it wasn’t quite what I had in mind,” Erik says. 

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Charles says. “Would you rather be doing something else?” 

“...Yes." But then Erik has to catch himself and think, "Or is that too forward?” 

“You’ve shot me in the spine,” Charles remarks. “I’m paralyzed from the waist down. I think we’re past ‘forward.’ Or any other form of politeness, really.” 

Erik finds he can’t argue with that.

 

After the meal, they take a walk by the beach. It’s like Charles wasn’t ever a cripple. 

They kick off their shoes and their socks to stick their bare toes in the sand. Before they go any further towards the sea, Erik insists that they fold up their trousers. The fact that they are both in black tie and since they’ve already made the sensible choice to save their shoes, there’s no real reason to not follow that up and to --

“Do you want to get naked with me?” Charles says, “Because I can arrange that. I might even like it.” 

“Might even like it,” One corner of Erik’s mouth lifts, despite himself. “Who _are_ you?” 

“A man who has done plenty of growing up when he was left. That’s what you did, don’t try to deny it. You left me, and I had to do without you.” Charles's gaze, stern and steady, never leave Erik’s. But then, the same can’t be said of Erik, whose eyes are drawn instead to the skin covering Charles’ clavicle, as the man undoes his shirt. 

“Actually, I need you to help me with my cufflinks.” 

“That’s sexy,” Erik can’t help but point out, but of course he steps in to help. 

“I happen to like these, thank you.” 

“You were always a practical man.” Besides, there are obvious advantages to maintaining a hairbreadth of space between them. It’s easy for Erik to lean in to put his mouth to Charles’s clavicle, the way he’s been thinking about doing. He tries to remember what the man likes and doesn’t like and settles on just the slightest of pressure with his teeth. If memory serves, that sort of thing is good for testing the waters. 

“Ah, so you do remember,” Charles aspirates a breathy little laugh. 

“I don’t remember anything. Just a shot in the dark.” 

Following the natural cadence of the evening, Charles leans in and kisses Erik properly when he tugs at a fistful of his hair. Erik thinks that Charles tastes like the aerated white chocolate he’d had for dessert. Charles murmurs, “And what a shot it was.” 

“You always knew how to make a man blush.” 

Charles’s fingers creep up along Erik’s jawline and press against his cheek, as if he is hungry for any evidence of said blush. As if he so desperately wants to take something away from this night that isn’t just a wisp of pressure on his amygdala. 

“Well,” Charles says. “We are in my head. You kind of have to do what I want.” 

 

Charles insists that when they finally get down to business and fuck, that they do it in a hotel room. Or just any room, he’s not picky, but he would massively prefer it if the space in which they will inevitably make love has walls. 

“How prim,” Erik presses his thumb meaningfully into Charles’ hip. “Don’t I have any say in this? Like if I wanted to be adventurous, say. If I want to be seen, with you.” 

“No, you don’t have any say,” Charles nips at the sensitive skin over Erik’s Adam’s apple. “If people see, it’d be _fucking_. Call me _prim_ all you want, but I don’t want you to just fuck me.” Then he smiles, this time with teeth and illicit promise. 

“Trust me, Erik. Everything else is up for negotiation.”

 

They negotiate, compromise, and fuck in a room full of mirrors; Charles is mindful, after all, and accommodating of the fact that Erik likes being seen. Erik thinks that he is a tad out of touch with his young-man body, but nearly everything else comes naturally. He wraps cool metal around Charles’s neck and tells him to swallow. 

“Mm. This is different.”

“In a good way?” 

“I think so,” Charles looks into the mirror, a completely reflective surface stretched in place of where a wall ought to be. “Does it ever surprise you that we talk so frankly of sex but can’t seem to talk sense into anything else?” 

“No, not particularly,” Erik focuses on the way Charles’s muscles clench and following his instincts and ruts just so, drawing out a long delicious whine out of Charles and the man reaches back to set dig his fingernails into Erik’s thigh. “It works in our favor, not to agree on those other things. In fact, you might call it -- resolve. Whereas sex with its tumultuous nature…” He moves again, as if to prove a damn point. “Must conclude itself with a natural agreement between parties. Or else.” 

“Stop it,” Charles says dryly, but notably short of breath, “You’re turning me on. _Oh._ Do that again.”

“So, do I stop it?” 

Charles glowers at him, but the usual steel-eyedness behind his eyes is deadened by something else. Something that Erik finds himself unabashedly liking very much, even though he knows better than to encourage it. “Or I could just make you.” 

“All you had to do, Charles, is ask. A little politeness wouldn’t go wrong with me, either.” 

“Oh, please _please_.” 

Erik does, until Charles’s little keens fill up the house of glass and he spills himself into Erik’s hand, sticky and warm. 

 

Later, they lie very still and Erik watches as the glass falls away to reveal a room with gleaming pinewood floor. Instead of the cool touch of glass, what can only be Charles’s imagination -- seamless and fantastic -- envelops them on a roomy double bed made over in sheets with a respectable thread count. Charles reaches to kiss Erik on the mouth and tastes come on his mouth, along with a bit of white chocolate, if he looks for it hard enough.

“...I have to go,” Charles says. “I have to wake up.” 

“You could stay,” Erik shifts his grasp on Charles and turns to look at him. “Never wake up again.” 

“That’s not how this works, darling.” 

“See?” Erik smiles wanly, “There’s that resolve again. Terribly unsexy.” 

The thought does pass in his mind, Charles will admit, but he doubts that his never waking up will have the effects that Erik desires. He can see it now, and what he sees in his cynical mind is unending madness. Sex will only detract from that only so much, for a little while. 

“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” Charles says. He slips out of the bed and when Erik opens his eyes again, Charles is dressed. Right down to his favorite fucking cufflinks. 

“I wouldn’t have been disappointed, just surprised,” Erik says. He thinks to himself he must be telling the truth. 

 

It’s always a bit of a surprise, coming back to his body, guided by the dull, if insistent beeping of Erik’s heart monitor.

Charles is suddenly struck by the sensation that he needs to piss, but after a minute, the feeling nearly always goes away. He just has to be patient. 

The door to the hospital door opens, revealing Hank, whose glasses are suddenly thicker than Charles remembers, and his hair with streaks of white in it, is just about jarring. Hank is followed by a nurse’s aide, who is holding a clean bedpan. 

“Anita always changes Erik around this time,” Hank explains, striding forward towards Charles’s chair, “Doubt even you’d want to stay for that, Professor.”

“You’ve told me that before,” Charles says, grateful for any reason to not look towards the bed. Guilt will come later; now he just feels relieved. “But yes, I’m ready to go now.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Empire of the Sun (the The Sun Also Sets remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20463704) by [iberiandoctor (jehane)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jehane/pseuds/iberiandoctor)




End file.
